David Hampson suffered an aneurysm two weeks after his daughter Blossom was born and it changed his personality forever.

David Hampson suffered an aneurysm two weeks after his daughter Blossom was born and it changed his personality forever. Two years on, David and his wife Lesley tell Kirstie McCrum that life is a daily struggle but Blossom has helped them both focus on a new future

WATCHING his daughter play, David Hampson is every inch the devoted dad. But behind the happy scenes of him with his wife Lesley and daughter Blossom is a sadness caused by a life-changing event.

David suffered a brain injury two and a half years ago which changed his personality and the lives of his loved ones forever.

David, who is 37, had been back at work from paternity leave for two days when he suffered an aneurysm. In the previous weeks, he had been to the GP complaining of headaches and giddiness, but it was 15 days after the birth of baby Blossom on May 25, 2010 when he collapsed at home.

“I was getting giddy feelings, but I just put it down to overdoing it at work,” he explains.

Lesley, who is 44 and works as a housing association support worker, was at home and heard a bang.

“I put the baby in her rocker to go and investigate. When I found Dave, he was fitting and foaming at the mouth. I rang the ambulance and they whisked him off to hospital leaving me and Blossom,” she recalls.

Taking Blossom to her parents’ house, Lesley followed David to the University Hospital of Wales, Heath, Cardiff.

“I didn’t really understand it at the time when they were telling me stuff. They knew basically what happened with a brain injury like that but each individual is different and I didn’t know if he was going to survive.

“All my hormones were everywhere. Blossom was my fourth child, I didn’t expect to have another one and all of a sudden I’ve got a baby to look after and then Dave in hospital.”

The couple, who live in Llantwit Major, had been together for less than two years at the time and although Lesley has three children from a previous relationship, they weren’t living with the couple. She says that juggling care for Blossom with going to see David in hospital was difficult as the baby was so young.

“His parents and my parents supported us, but that can only go on for so long. David didn’t know I was at the hospital for at least a week, because he was on medication. It wasn’t really worth me being there because he was so poorly, but you feel as if you have to be there,” Lesley says.

After an operation on May 26, David stayed in hospital for a further two weeks before he was allowed to go home. Lesley says that it was a difficult time.

“When he was allowed to come home. he was just sitting on the sofa for months. He didn’t want to do anything – have a bath, get dressed. He was just watching DVDs and I had the baby to look after. He had no motivation.”

A change in personality often follows a brain injury and Lesley says that getting used to the ‘new’ David was difficult. For his part, David says that it was only later that he became aware he had changed.

“I lost all emotion to the brain injury, I can’t get upset about anything at all. I remember the way I was before, I was very outgoing. I wanted to be around people. After the injury, I had no emotion, I would get up, make it to the settee and lie there.

“When I was in the hospital it was like I was in a bubble, there was no severity to it. I wasn’t registering what had happened and I was nice and safe.

“Once I got home, I had no get up and go and I didn’t see any point in having any. The baby was there in the flat, Lesley was there, what else did I want? I didn’t think about work, money, anything.”

Another change was in the couple’s social lives. Once avid gig-goers, the injury meant that David couldn’t be around too many people or in a noisy environment like a concert or a pub.

Lesley says that it was taxing having David home and unable to help. For three months he was blind in one eye as a result of the injury and required an operation to fix it. With her frustrations building up, she realised that she would have to return to work early from her maternity leave in order to make ends meet.

“I had to leave Blossom at home with him, but then she had to go to nursery for two days a week because he couldn’t cope and our parents could only do so much,” she says.

The couple made contact with the Community Brain Injury Team based at Rookwood Hospital in Cardiff and were referred to brain injury charity Headway. From there, David was able to attend courses to help him come to terms with his injury.

Lesley explains, “The courses were cognitive, anger management – they were all focussing on him managing how he was thinking. He didn’t know he had changed for about a year and it was difficult.”

David says that the counselling and help that he and Lesley have received helped them both to come to terms with the way their lives have changed, but he says most important has been Blossom, who is now two and a half years old.

“The baby’s been my biggest thing, to be honest. With Blossom, everything seems to be there. When I was in hospital, Lesley would bring in photographs. They brought her to the hospital on a couple of occasions and Lesley wheeled me down in a wheelchair so I could see her.

“Blossom is great, amazing in every way. I love every side to her. She’s cheeky, she’s naughty but I love it. It’s just one thing I’ve been able to concentrate on, she gets my full attention of everything.”

The couple married this year on May 25, two years to the day since David suffered his aneurysm and Lesley says that they’re taking each day as it comes.

“It’s not normal now, I don’t think it’ll ever be normal. We’ve had to work through a load of stuff, it is a really sad story. Because he suffers with severe fatigue, we have to manage around that. My work has suffered because some days when he has the baby, he rings me and says: “I can’t do it, I have to go to bed and lie down’.

“Blossom is the only one who only knows him as he is now, she didn’t know him before, but that’s just the way it is. For other people going through it now, I’d say it’s not the end of the world, but you’ve got to be strong to get through it day by day.

I’ve shed so many tears and been so frustrated, but you just have to carry on.”

Headway – the UK’s leading brain injury charity – provides support, services and information to brain injury survivors, their families and carers, as well as to professionals in the health and legal fields. It has more than 100 groups and branches throughout the UK;

It is estimated that across the UK there are more than 500,000 people of working age living with permanent disabilities as a result of head injury;

Each year, around 1.4million people attend hospital A&E in the UK following head injury;

Approximately half of deaths in people under 40 are due to head injury;

Head injury accounts for about 30% of traumatic deaths and a higher proportion of long-term disability;

Men are two or three times more likely to have a brain injury than women. This increases to five times more likely in the 15-29 age range;

The major causes of head injury are road traffic accidents, falls and accidents at home or at work.

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